o-tak-u

 Yakitate Japan

Original Creator: Takashi Hashiguchi

Director: Yasunao Aoki

Production Group:  Sunrise

Total Episodes: 69

Summary: Azuma Kazuma, meeting a baker during his childhood, and dedicates himself to become the best baker in in Japan, after graduating from middle school, he goes to a famous bakery Pantasia to test his skills. Azuma forfeits later then is hired by a small Pantasia branch in the south and from their he starts to work on making the best bread in Japan.

Yakitate Japan is a really fun and “educational” anime series that teaches you how to make bread. Azuma Kazuma, the main character is on a mission to bake the #1 bread in Japan, he’s not that clever, but he is hear kinded and a very skilled baker. Kawachi Kyousuke, another member who was hired to the smaller branch in the south, met Azuma at the Main branch try outs and also forfeited. Kawachi is a must have kind of character in this series with his hilarious “WHAT YOU SAY!” (Nanyatte!) jokes. Adds the hilarity up a notch. Throughout the rest of the series, Azuma meets other unique characters as he gains more ability to get closer to creating the best bread in Japan.

The Animation production Sunrise, was quite a surprise for me. Usually when I think of Sunrise, the anime series, Code Geass, Gundam 00, and Cowboy Bebop,  pop into my heads, why because they are very well known for their great animation series that has Mechs and Robots. But in Yakitate Japan, I don’t really recall seeing a single robot in it. quite suprising, but after researching a bit about Sunrise, you can see that they do a lot of anime series production that has nothing to do with robots.

The animation is very smooth, and very well made, the quality is great. great use of color, but a little different color scheme from the other “robot” series. Yakitate has more of a mellow and colorful use of the color and its not over used. The sense of softness and the simple use of shade just works perfect for this type of anime.

The Opening song “Houkigumo” by RYTHEM, has a fun upbeat tune, each words in the song syncs with the animations. With the use of special affects they use in the Gundam series they can add alot of action scenes that really isn’t necessary in the show, but to attract viewers and such it is quite an awesome opening. The ending “Sunday” by The Babystars has an interesting ending animation, it shows Azuma kneading bread and at the same time they have a real life baker kneading the bread, by the end it shows what kind of bread it is a quite unique ending. Like all the other long series they have multiple opening and endings, but i will only talk about the first ones.

So if you interested in making bread or watching …. bread. then this series will be great, i dont know any other anime series that does a better job this this in making some kind of food. I was able to make bread from watching this anime, so its both educational and a really great anime to watch.

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Ratings:

Story: B

Animation: B-

Art: B

Music: B

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Youtube video of the OP/ED will be posted, so please go and watch them if you are interested.

Thanks again for reading and if there are any suggestion/comments/questions, please feel free to ask.

Jya~ne see ya later

 ~O-tak-U